Deerpark studying outsourcing

DEERPARK — The town is studying the option of outsourcing some town departments and this has some people worried that jobs will disappear.

BY STEPHEN SACCO

DEERPARK — The town is studying the option of outsourcing some town departments and this has some people worried that jobs will disappear.

Supervisor Karl Brabenec has asked Councilman Art Trovie to study the possibility of outsourcing the functions of the town's assessor, tax collector and the highway department.

Brabenec says all the town is doing is finding out if there's any advantages to privatizing these functions. The town isn't sold on the option, he says, at least not at this time.

Since the new board took over in January it has been cutting back full-time positions to part-time positions without benefits as a way to save over the long run. A long-range fiscal plan, developed mostly by Councilman Dave Hoovler, has identified the cost over time of paying out health and pension benefits as one of the town's biggest financial liabilities.

The move to study privatizing, however, has caused a stir among town workers, who could stand to lose their jobs. "I don't know how you are going to (privatize) the highway department," said the town's Highway Superintendent Ed Hughson, who is an elected official. "Unless you want to go back to the days of the horse and buggy."

The 14 workers under Hughson have recently asked the Laborers' International Union of North America to represent them, says union business manager Todd Diorio. The highway workers have had a small bargaining unit but have not previously officially been affiliated with a union, said Diorio. "(Municipalities) are finding the easy way to cut cost is to cut bodies — cops, firemen, DPW workers — whoever they can cut," Diorio said.

Trovie says that the town board members, who mostly come from a business background, have been astounded at the cost to the town of benefits like health insurance after retirement, which can cost as much as $900,000 per person if they live long enough, he said.

Here, Trovie and Diorio agree. Both say a big part of the problem is the state dumping more of the pension and health-care costs onto small towns which are already suffering from declining tax revenue.

Brabenec views privatization as a possible way of promoting job growth in the private sector, even though public-sector jobs could be lost.

But Jessica Ladlee, spokeswoman for the CSEA, says private-sector workers are less likely to be from the community or as answerable to the public. "(Public sector workers) really aren't making a lot of money," she said. "And people still need (these) good middle-class jobs."